From Rush & Molloy, NY Daily News (give me strength!):
The Rev. Al Sharpton gave Mexican President Vicente Fox a crash course in Brooklyn street-speak when they met Monday.
The Rev, you'll recall, left Mexico's presidential mansion in a huff after Fox would only say he "regretted" saying Mexicans in the U.S. "take work that not even blacks want to do."
Sources say that during their meeting, Fox confided that for political reasons, he couldn't formally apologize.
Sharpton wouldn't discuss Fox's remarks, but confirmed to us that he told the president, "Don't p- on my leg and tell me it's raining."
"He was taken aback," the preacher recalled. " But I said to him, 'I'm from Brooklyn. We talk plainly.'"
Sharpton said Fox happily accepted his gift of a DVD of "Crash," the critically acclaimed race-relations drama. Meanwhile, Sharpton was among the 20 or so black leaders Sen. John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry invited to dinner at their D.C. home Wednesday.
Kerry also invited them to critique his failed presidential campaign. Several told him they'd wished he had waited longer before conceding Ohio and that he didn't reach out early enough to minority voters.
"He took the criticism very well," said Sharpton. "He gave no indication about whether he was going to run for President again."
Asked if he'd support the senator, Sharpton said, "I haven't decided whether I'm going to run again."
Lloyd Grove (NY Daily News) writes:
McCain for president? Not Yet! At Wednesday's screening of A&E's "Faith of My Fathers" aboard the the aircraft carrier Intrepid, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) - whose memoir inspired the movie, which airs on Memorial Day - sure looked like he was running for something. McCain just helped broker a fragile peace in the Senate over President Bush's judicial nominees. But when I asked if he'd started thinking about another White House bid, he claimed: "Not for a couple of years. Not till after '06. No need to do that now. And I'll be far more effective in the Senate if people don't have to worry that I'm running for President." Is there anybody in the Senate who doesn't believe he's running?
That's just so Kerryesque, only asking for a critique from someone who wouldn't dream of criticizing him.